The battle-tempered vista fell silent. The bear took a step back as Cyanide held his breath in anticipation of what happened next. Arik knelt there in the lush grass, breathing heavily with his eyes closed. A small trickle of blood began to run down the center of his forehead.

"Cyanide!" shouted Arik to the earth. "I don't think your methods of tutelage are working very well." He looked to the sidelined mentor, anger in his eyes.

Cyanide cocked his head to the side. "Oh? Then how did you survive that attack just now?"

"What do you mean how? This thing punches like a demonic marshmallow, that's how." He raised to his feet.

"Nope. I saw the twinkle of danger in your eyes earlier. Rupert may hit rather softly, but those claws of his are the real deal."

Arik's eyes softened up as confusion struck.

"You mean that last attack was with his claws?"

"Yep. And if you hadn't done what you just did, your head would have easily been split in twain."

Arik thought to himself for a few moments, lost in the moment.

"You mean you don't even know what you just did?" Cyanide chortled. "You just used your third echo."

"My third? But I haven't— died." Arik's mind coursed to the memories of that moment in the forest after the fight with Cyanide the day prior. When he woke up to a collapsing stone wall and was mysteriously completely healed up. "So I did?"

"I already told you. You just didn't want to hear it. After that test I gave you yesterday, you ran off and died on me. If I had to guess it was probably internal hemorrhaging of the brain. But who knows."

"So then what did I just do?"

"Well I understand why you may not have seen it. But you should have at least felt it."

"Felt what?!" Arik was ravenous for the answer.

"Well it looked like you momentarily conjured a golden helmet on your head to protect you from Rupert's strike. And if I had to guess, it was probably—"

He pondered quietly a bit, mulling over the possibilities before his fingertips came together as if holding an invisible object. A glint of light erupted from each conjoined finger and his hands pulled away from each other to reveal five thin threads of white energy tethering each finger to their sibling hand's. He spread his hands further apart, stretching the threads about a foot in length before twisting his hands in opposite rotations. The threads twisted together into an hourglass shape and began to glow more intensely before warping with light and taking on the shape of an actual object between Cyanide's hands. The light gradually faded to reveal a book.

Cyanide licked his finger and began flipping through the pages.

Arik realized his jaw was hanging wide open. He cleared his throat and spoke up. "Was that one of your echoes? You can make books out of light?"

"Yes, and not exactly. It's called Eidetic Chamber and it allows me to store a multitude of small items in a pocket dimension of sorts. This here specifically is an encyclopedia of mine that keeps a record of all discovered echoes throughout the last few hundred years. It's called the Undercroft."

The concept was something mind boggling to Arik at this time. It was hard enough to swallow that there were multiple people with superpowers in the real world. But then to go a step further and know that they organized and created what sounds like a bible of the immortals was almost too out of reality. He wondered if other deathless struggled with the truth as much as he did.

"Now this undercroft should have something in here that explains your echo in more detail. That is, if someone else has had the same echo as yourself. Which I'm almost positive I've seen it before."

Arik stood there patiently, waiting for an answer to help shortcut the trials of a new echo. But time was not his friend anymore and the heavy bruises and cuts from sparring began to scream their presence more and more every second.

"Aha!" celebrated Cyanide. "'Desired Armor. Those with the echo of Desired Armor may materialize a piece of armor around one portion of their body to protect themselves from harm. This armor takes the form of—' yadda yadda yadda, 'yellow energy—' blah blah yeah yeah.

"Ah, here is something more important. 'Desired Armor is typically a leveled type as opposed to a tier type. When one begins to master the level of Desired Armor they are at, a new level of Desired Armor unveils itself. Each successive level of the echo increases its strength as well as the amount of armor parts you can create upon manifestation. The current highest known level of Desired Armor is 6.'

"So there you have it. If you keep working on your new echo it can skyrocket in power." The undercroft in Cyanide's hands quickly began to glow with light before bursting into fading white specks in the air. "The Undercroft is pretty handy, isn't it?"

Arik clenched an outward first at Cyanide as his eyes burned with conviction. "Fight me."

"Pardon?"

"Put your gun down and fight me. One on one."

The launcher was lifted off of a hook on the man's hip and dropped to the floor with a hard thud. "I get it. You're antsy and want to power up your new echo as soon as possible."

Arik stared, silent and braceful.

"But don't forget, I'm an old man; an old soldier at that. I know rage when I see it. Don't do something you'll regret."

"If I made you bleed in our first fight then I think I can manage better this time." A smirk now cracked on Arik's face.

The words seemed to visibly excite Cyanide as his eyes widened and he began rolling a shoulder. "Kid, I was going so easy on you. I can do things you can't even comprehend."

"Well then let's see what you got."

Cyanide spit to the side. "Cocky. Let's see how long that holds up."

Cyanide's stomach rapidly erupted with a strange ghastly material that seemed equal parts solid, liquid and gas. It's mass, devoid of color, spread down his legs and up his arms before covering his head within a second. The indiscernible form began to mold into shape and saturate with an earthy color before Arik was finally able to place what he was horrendously observing.

Within just seconds, Cyanide had become the grizzly bear, Rupert. The huge claws on one arm stretched out like spread scissors and its singular functioning eye opened up to reveal the crystal eye of Cyanide, rather than the onyx eye of the bear Arik had fought minutes earlier. This was the original ability of the echo, the protective husk Cyanide spoke of. They had become one.

'Perhaps I didn't think this through,' thought Arik regretfully.

"Defend!" commanded Cyanide as he dashed forward at blinding speed.

It was unfortunate to see that the husk hadn't hampered Cyanide's nimbleness at all. He was at least twice as fast and used a completely different fighting style than the base bear right off the bat. Before Arik could think of an efficient strategy the lumbering ursine was within striking range, launching a thick and stubby fist at Arik's indignant face.

The next few minutes were hellish. Arik didn't stand a chance against Cyanide's indomitable defense and the overly convenient dashing echo that allowed him to be in almost two places at once. What was even worse, his blows struck completely different than those of the unaccompanied Rupert from earlier. They had less knock back, sure, but were much more solid and were guided by the intelligence of what Arik would guess was a Navy SEAL. The man had it all: speed, strength and durability.

Even though Arik had challenged Cyanide to a legitimate fight, Cyanide was still of the instructive mindset. Accompanying his slew of jabs and haymakers were words of criticism and encouragement. "Read your opponent— Guard your chin— Think defensively," he would shout at a beaten and bloodied Arik.

It went like this for upwards of 10 minutes, Cyanide showing no signs of fatigue while Arik had all but laid completely unconscious on the ground. He was so preoccupied with the baleful barrage and pain that conceding never even occurred to him; not that Cyanide would've allowed it anyways.

But this time he was determined to go unbowed. He had found out real quick that there was nothing he could do offensively to shut down Cyanide, and flying was just prolonging or throwing in the towel, with both not being a real option. The only thing he could do was defend as his mentor instructed, listening to his words and applying them to the best of his ability. But while his vigor was wearing thin, he knew this would end soon.

"C'mon Arik! Are you going to just keep taking this? Are you not tired of getting hurt?"

The provoking words ignited his soul, compounding his hidden rage and exhaustion to the brink of total fury. Arik swung his arm up and out in response to the next heavy slug from the bear and the implausible occurred. A golden shield of energy materialized from his forearm and intercepted the punch, deflecting it to the side in one concise motion. Cyanide's madness ended abruptly as they both ogled at the new echoes' elegance.

About a foot in a half wide and two feet tall, the shield weightlessly floated off Arik's arm like the halo atop an angel's head. It shared a similar glow as well. After only a few seconds of speechless staring went by, the shield turned from a mystifying solid to a gaseous form that imploded into itself and disappeared without a trace. The absence of the bright glow that once shone from the echo left the two with unadjusted eyes. Or in Arik's case, one unadjusted eye as the other was now swollen shut.